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  • JavaScript showcase: a fun playground environment for MLE/JavaScript in Oracle AI Database 26ai

    I’m a huge fan of Oracle’s SQL Developer Extension for VSCode. I use it on a daily basis, and it has been invaluable to me. I particularly like the great integration into Git, and it’s built on top of a solid foundation that is Visual Studio Code. Recently I found out about GitHub CodeSpaces. After…

  • Say hello to the all new server-side JavaScript LiveLab

    In-Database JavaScript, powered by Multilingual Engine (MLE) debuted as a major feature in Oracle AI Database 26ai. Starting with the Developer Preview (Release 23.2) a few years ago, you could write user-defined functions and procedures in JavaScript in addition to PL/SQL and Java. But you may ask yourself: how do I get started? There’s an…

  • Why does my query run in parallel on Autonomous Database-Serverless even though I do everything to prevent it from doing so?

    While preparing for another blog post I desperately wanted to write I noticed something unexpected. The problem turned out to be between keyboard and chair, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Tell me what happened already! Using Oracle SQL Developer Extension for Visual Studio Code, connecting to an Autonomous Database-Serverless, a query…

  • What’s new with MLE 23.26.0 – support for PL/SQL Collections and Records Pt 2

    Oracle AI Database has been released! It ships with a whole raft of cool new features, including some the Multilingual Engine (MLE) team integrated for JavaScript. This article discusses one of them, support for PL/SQL Records and Collections. This is a rather wide topic, which is why you find the article broken into a small…

  • Troubleshooting missing privileges in dbms_xplan.display_cursor

    This is a quick note-to-self to make sure a database account has all the necessary privileges to execute dbms_xplan.display_cursor. These are documented in the PL/SQL Packages and Types reference, summarised here for your convenience. Well, mine, actually 😀 WARNING: before you start granting the following privileges, make sure you have a change request recorded, and…

  • Does the MLE SQL Driver respect Virtual Private Database policies?

    An interesting question came in today and it’s a great opportunity to elaborate a little on the nature of the Oracle JavaScript SQL Driver. As you may have heard, Oracle AI Database 26ai introduced JavaScript as a first class citizen right next to PL/SQL and Java. Now you’ve got another language to write database lambdas…

  • Git clone, but a specific branch, please

    This is a super quick post mainly to remind myself that it is possible to (git) clone a specific branch, rather than the default branch. And it’s actually quite simple to do so. As per git-clone (1), the command: So, as expected, the repository is now present on disk. What about these branches? The current…

  • Multiple “for” clauses in dbms_stats’s method_opt

    Recently, I encountered some frustration in recalling the correct syntax for the method_opt parameter in DBMS_STATS. This clause is primarily used when creating or deleting histograms. A histogram is a special type of column statistic that provides more detailed information about the data distribution in a table column. A histogram sorts values into “buckets,” as…

  • More good reasons to use bind variables in cursors in Oracle

    Bind variables are a best practice in Oracle database development. They offer significant benefits in performance, security, and maintainability. One of the main reasons to use bind variables is protection against SQL injection, but performance plays an equally important role. This post is concerned with the latter. What are bind variables? As a database developer…

  • Creating column-level annotations on views

    While updating my slides covering “what’s new in Oracle AI Database 26ai” I noticed that examples how to annotate views are currently absent from the SQL Language Reference. While this is getting fixed, here’s a short post how to use annotations with Oracle views. Schema Annotations Schema Annotations are a pretty nice feature, especially in…